A good round-up of the “Twitter bomber” case:
It all started with a moment of grumpy sarcasm on Twitter. Frustrated that his planned trip to Northern Ireland was put in jeopardy by heavy snow at Robin Hood Airport in Doncaster, Mr Chambers whipped out his iPhone and posted the following message on the social networking site: ‘C***! Robin Hood Airport closed. You have got a week to get your s*** together, otherwise I’m blowing the airport sky high!’
A week later, he was in a police station being quizzed as a potential terrorist. He was eventually prosecuted under a law aimed at nuisance calls rather than under legislation for bomb hoaxes, which requires stronger evidence of intent.
After all, it was plain as a pikestaff that Mr Chambers didn’t have any intent to bomb anything at all. Even so, he was hauled before magistrates, found guilty of sending a menacing electronic communication and fined £385. A few days ago, Mr Chambers lost his appeal against his conviction and sentence.
He will now have to pay £2,600 legal costs as well. Judge Jacqueline Davies, who was sitting with two magistrates, ruled the tweet was ‘menacing in its content and obviously so’, claiming ‘any ordinary person’ would ‘be alarmed’ by it.
